Table of Contents

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ANES 1978 Time Series Study (ICPSR 7655)

Alternate Title: American National Election Study, 1978

Principal Investigator(s):
Miller, Warren E., University of Michigan. Institute for Social Research. Center for Political Studies;
National Election Studies/Center for Political Studies

Summary:

This study is part of a time-series collection of national
surveys fielded continuously since 1952. The election studies are
designed to present data on Americans' social backgrounds, enduring
political predispositions, social and political values, perceptions
and evaluations of groups and candidates, opinions on questions of
public policy, and participation in political life. In this
post-election survey, major emphasis was placed on the respondent's
evaluation of their congressional district's candidates, both the
incumbent and opponent, along several dimensions. As in previous
American National Election studies, this survey included a series of
questions on the media coverage of the campaigns and scales that
measured the respondent's positions on major social issues, including
urban unrest, protection of the rights of the accused, aid to minority
groups, government insurance plan, and women's role in society. The
perceived position of the political parties, as well as certain
political leaders, on these issues was also ascertained. In addition
to the survey data, this file also contains several contextual
components consisting of: (1) historical election returns at the
state, congressional district, and county levels for elections to the
offices of president, governor, and United States senator and
representative, 1972-1976, (2) 1978 election returns for primary and
general elections to the same offices, including precinct level
returns, (3) voter validation variables, (4) information about media
structure in the respondent's locale, (5) incumbent characteristics,
including information pertaining to the incumbent U.S. representatives
of the 95th Congress from the 108 congressional districts sampled in
the survey (a major feature of this component is a series of
performance ratings that each member of Congress received from certain
interest groups and from the Congressional Quarterly), (6) candidate
characteristics that apply to the Democratic and Republican candidates
for the office of U.S. representative in the 1978 general elections
(the latter data were obtained from a 1978 candidate questionnaire
that was administered by Congressional Quarterly, Inc.), (7)
information prepared by the Federal Election Commission on campaign
expenditures and contributions for the offices of U.S. senator and
U.S. representative, and (8) U.S. Census Bureau data containing
social, economic, and demographic information recorded for the
respondent's place of residence. Some of the Census data present
information at the congressional district level drawn from the
Congressional District Data Book (93rd Congress), as well as
county-level Census tabulations prepared from the 1972 County and City
Data Book. Additional information includes campaign materials
collected from the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican
congressional candidates, such as what types of campaign material
existed and in how many varieties. Additionally, thematic dimensions
of the campaign were coded from the campaign materials.

This study is part of a time-series collection of national
surveys fielded continuously since 1952. The election studies are
designed to present data on Americans' social backgrounds, enduring
political predispositions, social and political values, perceptions
and evaluations of groups and candidates, opinions on questions of
public policy, and participation in political life. In this
post-election survey, major emphasis was placed on the respondent's
evaluation of their congressional district's candidates, both the
incumbent and opponent, along several dimensions. As in previous
American National Election studies, this survey included a series of
questions on the media coverage of the campaigns and scales that
measured the respondent's positions on major social issues, including
urban unrest, protection of the rights of the accused, aid to minority
groups, government insurance plan, and women's role in society. The
perceived position of the political parties, as well as certain
political leaders, on these issues was also ascertained. In addition
to the survey data, this file also contains several contextual
components consisting of: (1) historical election returns at the
state, congressional district, and county levels for elections to the
offices of president, governor, and United States senator and
representative, 1972-1976, (2) 1978 election returns for primary and
general elections to the same offices, including precinct level
returns, (3) voter validation variables, (4) information about media
structure in the respondent's locale, (5) incumbent characteristics,
including information pertaining to the incumbent U.S. representatives
of the 95th Congress from the 108 congressional districts sampled in
the survey (a major feature of this component is a series of
performance ratings that each member of Congress received from certain
interest groups and from the Congressional Quarterly), (6) candidate
characteristics that apply to the Democratic and Republican candidates
for the office of U.S. representative in the 1978 general elections
(the latter data were obtained from a 1978 candidate questionnaire
that was administered by Congressional Quarterly, Inc.), (7)
information prepared by the Federal Election Commission on campaign
expenditures and contributions for the offices of U.S. senator and
U.S. representative, and (8) U.S. Census Bureau data containing
social, economic, and demographic information recorded for the
respondent's place of residence. Some of the Census data present
information at the congressional district level drawn from the
Congressional District Data Book (93rd Congress), as well as
county-level Census tabulations prepared from the 1972 County and City
Data Book. Additional information includes campaign materials
collected from the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican
congressional candidates, such as what types of campaign material
existed and in how many varieties. Additionally, thematic dimensions
of the campaign were coded from the campaign materials.

Dataset(s)

Study Description

Citation

Miller, Warren E., and National Election Studies/Center for Political Studies. ANES 1978 Time Series Study. ICPSR07655-v4. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2015-11-10. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07655.v4

Universe:
All United States citizens of voting age residing in
households.

Data Type(s):
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

Users should note that there are gaps in the
variable numbering.

The SAS transport file was created using the
SAS CPORT procedure.

Methodology

Sample:
Probability sample of both United States citizens and
congressional districts. The sample did not permit estimates of each
district's constituency.

Mode of Data Collection:
face-to-face interview,
telephone interview

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Performed consistency checks.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release: 1984-06-19

Version History:

2015-11-10 The study metadata was updated

2000-03-21 The data for this study are now available in SAS
transport and SPSS export formats in addition to the ASCII data file,
and a PDF version of the data collection instrument is now available.
Variables in the dataset have been renumbered to the following format:
2-digit (or 2-character) year prefix + 4 digits + [optional]
1-character suffix. Dataset ID and version variables also have been
added. For several districts, it was discovered that race (V4) was
incorrectly assigned in the 1978 data. In MS03, 24 cases have been
recoded to 12. In NY19, 9 cases were recoded to 14, and in NY38, 14
cases were recoded to 24. Also, in case 1352, the congressional
district was recoded to district 4. In addition, the six supplementary
files containing United States Census Bureau data that were previously
listed as Parts 2-7 are no longer being released with this data
collection. The variables from these files had been added to the data
in a previous release.